Wednesday, April 08, 2009

I was researching an almost-finished post and looked up 'wonjo gyoje' (the name for freelance teen prostitution, which I've looked at here, here and here) at the Chosun Ilbo's website and found this story from March 27. In it we're told that at the Seoul Southern District Court 29 year-old Mr. Hwang was sentenced to 6 months in prison for breaking the Act on Protection of Youth from Sexual Crimes by paying for sex with... an elementary school student. You see, last year Hwang met 12 year-old Jeong via internet chatting (wait, it gets worse) and through her he was introduced to 11 year-old A. He met A at 10pm last November 15 and had sex with her in his car in return for 100,000 won.

It was noted that most first-time prostitution offenders get a fine or probation, but that the unusual circumstances of this case called for something more severe. According to this article, three years is the maximum penalty in such cases, so he seems to have gotten off pretty easy. Twelve year-old girls have made the news several times before (three examples are here) in these kind of cases, but eleven years old... I teach kids that age, and that is just beyond creepy. One wonders if this is the youngest case that has been dealt with in the courts here, or if even younger girls have been involved in this sort of thing.

1 comment:

What do you think the sentence would be if it was an unqualified native English teacher?Korean parents routinuely give us access to their children. In private lessons, I have been in the room with the door closed for two hours while sitting on a middle and high school gils' beds with them. No flipping way they should allow access to their kids like that to adults.